Sir Alex Ferguson was in the French city of Montpellier checking out the accommodation for his Manchester United squad ahead of a big match against the local side.

‘Would you like lunch?’ asked the owner of the Maison Blanche Hotel.

Out came his finest wines — a Petrus and a Chateau d’Yquem — and Sir Alex left with the hotelier’s wise words of advice imprinted in his memory: ‘Invest in ’82s and ’85s. You won’t go wrong.’

Next month former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson will start to sell off a large part of his wine collection - some 5,000 bottles in total. They are expected to reach more than £3 million at auction

And he didn’t. Because now, more than 20 years later, the most successful football manager of our times is about to make (yet another) small fortune as a connoisseur of fine wine.

Next month, Sir Alex will start selling off a large part of his collection — some 5,000 bottles in total (all red, needless to say). And the guide price? An extremely ripe and fruity £3 million.

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Now, admittedly, in current footballing terms, this might buy you only one leg of a half-decent defender. But, since that works out at an average of £600 a bottle — or £100 a glass — it’s a heck of a lot for a drop of wine.

And the industry experts have little doubt that many of these wines will go for well above the asking price when they go under the hammer at three Christie’s sales — one in Hong Kong, one in London and one online.

For the guide prices, based on market rates, do not include the added premium of the Ferguson brand, still as strong as ever one year on from his retirement.

Sir Alex began collecting wines in 1991 after visiting Montpellier to check out the accommodation for his squad ahead of a Manchester United fixture

For example, the star lots include a half-case (six bottles) of Domaine Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 1999, valued at £50,000-£65,000 (£8,300 to £10,800 a bottle).

Romanee-Conti is extremely hard to come by. Very little is produced each year, it is the darling of the Burgundy region and 1999 was one of the best vintages of all time.

It was also a vintage year for Sir Alex as his team achieved the magical ‘treble’ — winning the European Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup. And whoever buys this lot will also get a 1999 Manchester United Champions League shirt signed by the man himself.

That might be of limited interest to the grandees of the St James’s wine trade (for whom the name ‘Super Reds’ has a different meaning). But it will have huge appeal in Asia, where United are revered as the greatest team in the world. Those half a dozen bottles could easily reach six figures when the hammer falls.

Looking through the catalogue of more than 400 lots, it is clear that Sir Alex was as canny with his wine as with his footballers. ‘This is a great time to be selling Burgundy — people are mad about it — and a bad time to be selling Bordeaux,’ says Miles Davis, founding partner of London’s Wine Asset Managers.

Sure enough, three quarters of the Ferguson collection consists of Burgundy — most of it from that same highly-prized Romanée-Conti estate. But Sir Alex was judicious, too, in his choice of Bordeaux.

For, while the market for many grand old clarets has crashed, it remains extremely strong for Petrus. And, guess what? Sir Alex has bucketloads of that.

‘Petrus is an iconic wine made in small quantities with a very strong following,’ explains David Elswood, Christie’s head of wine. He describes Sir Alex as ‘a very sophisticated collector’ and says a sale of this magnitude might come around only two or three times a year.

To see just how shrewd Sir Alex has been, I consult Liv-ex, the London-based global stock market for fine wine sales which can track the price of every wine from release to the present day. Some of these wines are worth 30 times what Sir Alex paid for them. Many of his Burgundies are at an all-time high.

Staff at Christies auction house show off a bottle of Petrus 1988, one of 12 to go under the hammer. A retro Manchester United Champions League shirt will also be up for grabs when the three separate sales take place, one in London, another in Hong Kong and the last online

Any bargains? Sir Alex doesn’t do bargains. If you’re lucky, you might pick up a case of Chateau Pontet-Canet 2009 for under £1,000 (with a signed catalogue thrown in).

Sir Alex’s drinking days are far from over. He still has plenty of wine, he says, in the cellar of his Manchester home and keeps rather more in a bonded warehouse in an old Cold War bunker in Wiltshire.

He can also take the credit for introducing a post-match ritual among the top flight of football management — sharing a bottle of fine wine with the opposition.

Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, he notes, ‘has some decent wines’ and former Manchester City manager, Roberto Mancini would always produce a decent Sassicaia.

Not so the management at Chelsea whom he puts at the bottom of the wine appreciation league. ‘Chelsea weren’t very good. I had to remind them that they should have better wine.’

It’s been an extraordinary journey, not just on the pitch but in the glass. And for that, he can thank the Maison Blanche Hotel.

So what happened after that life-changing lunch? Sir Alex’s team duly thumped Montpellier 2-0, went all the way to the final and won the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

YOU WON'T FIND THEM IN TESCO - SIR ALEX'S VINTAGE HITS AND MISSES

Six bottles of Romanee- Conti 1999Estimate: £50,000-£65,000 (£8,300-£10,800 a bottle).Original price: £2,150 a bottleCanny transfer deal? 400 per cent profitTasting notes: ‘Perhaps the rarest and most sought-after wine. Ripe fruit, intense fragrance.’Fergie factor:
Best season of his career. The club became the first to win the treble
of the European Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup.
Ferguson received a knighthood.

Six bottles of Romanee-Conti 1999 (centre) are among the lots up for auction. They are expected to fetch upwards of £50,000 or between £8,300 and £10,800 per bottle

Twelve bottles of Petrus 1988Estimate: £11,500-£13,800 (£950-£1,150 per bottle)Original price: £750 (£62.50 per bottle)Canny transfer deal? 1,800 per cent profitTasting notes: ‘Generally ripe and quite exotic. Full flavoured and with intense black fruit taste.’Fergie factor: An inconsequential season. United ended as First Division runners-up to arch-rivals Liverpool and suffered an embarrassing League Cup exit at the hands of Oxford United.

An ‘imperiale’ - eight bottles in one - of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1986 with label signed by Sir Alex.Estimate: £7,000-£10,000Original price: £350Canny transfer deal? 2,700 per cent profitTasting notes: ‘Elegant and finely flavoured. Lafite of a great vintage is always subtle, austere and quite dry.’Fergie factor: A very important football vintage — 1986 was the year Sir Alex arrived at Manchester United.

Twelve bottles of Petrus 1988 valued at between £11,500 and £13,800 (left) and a signed imperiale - eight bottles in one - of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1986, valued at £7,000 t0 £10,000 will go up for auction

An imperiale of Chateau Haut-Brion 2005 with label signed by Sir Alex.Estimate: £2,700-£3,500Original price: £3,500Canny transfer deal? Lucky to break evenTasting notes: ‘Earthy and peppery. Quite tannic.’Fergie factor: No need to raise a glass. A dreary season. Third in the league, no trophies and United were nearly knocked out of the FA Cup by non-League Exeter City.

An imperiale of Ornellaia 2006 with label signed by Sir AlexEstimate: £770-£920Original price: £1,000Canny transfer deal? Not his finest.Tasting notes: ‘Dense flavours of ripe fruit and warm Italian sun.’Fergie factor: Only the League Cup to brighten the trophy cabinet. United came second in the League, well behind Chelsea, after a disastrous European campaign in which they failed to reach the knock-out stage.

An imperiale of Chateau Haut-Brion 2005 (left) will be auctioned next month, and is expected to fetch around £3,500. Another imperiale, of Ornellaia 2006 is expected to sell for upwards of £900